When asked whether they preferred to model Egypt on Saudi Arabia or Turkey regarding religion’s role in government, thy chose Saudi Arabia by a 61 to 17 percent margin. Note that Western pundits and experts keep insisting that there is some kind of Turkish model of moderate Islamism. Aside from the fact that Turks aren’t Arabs, this is a sign of the base of support for a fully sharia state.

O’Donnell says that “liberal” should not be a dirty word but a badge of honor. I agree. It should be, but it has been tarnished far less by conservatives’ attacks than by radicals who have hijacked that word and use it for an agenda that is bankrupting the United States, reducing liberties, and making a mess of U.S. foreign policy.

People don’t want to be told to sacrifice, especially because they suspect that the elite isn’t doing so and that this same elite is responsible for the mess. So they can be—easily?—manipulated into voting for those who tell them to eat, drink and be merry, with a minimal tax on billionaires and millionaires paying off the caterer.

The 'Islam-is-good school' makes the West defenseless to understand and deal with the threat. The 'Islam-is-bad' school discredits serious critiques of Islamism and honest analysis of Islam, thus letting their opponents win the debates and blind the West to the best strategy and potential allies.

At times we seem to be living in the updated version of Ignazio Silone’s remark, “The final conflict will be between the Communists and the ex-Communists.” All too often, we cannot depend on Western-trained intellectuals in positions of power who either buy into leftist ideology or tremble in fear of being called racists or Islamophobes.

The great advantage of the Obama administration and the far left has been concealment and deniability. They deny their extremism and sugar-coat their message, helped by the mass media and other institutions. But the Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t this sophisticated “New New Left” but instead is like the Old Left and 1960s’ New Left in its rhetoric, methods, and symbols. It openly talks about anarchism, Communism, Marxism, and overthrowing capitalism.

Israel is apparently going to have elections this autumn and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will almost certainly win by a big margin. Understanding why explains a lot about the country that people think they know the most about but in fact comprehend the least.

As you know, just about everyone in the world outside of Israel has been claiming that an attack is imminent or that it is only being held back by the U.S. government. My argument has been that this is simply untrue. Most of the Israeli strategic and intelligence leadership oppose an attack, for the same reasons I do. Moreover, these people don’t believe it is going to happen in the near future.

The result may well be an Islamist versus Islamist run-off. In any event, it is likely that by the end of the year Egypt will have an Islamist president, parliament, and Constitution. Laws will be drastically altered, women’s rights will disappear, and Hamas will be backed up if it attacked Israel.

Egypt will hold its presidential election May 23-24 with a possible run-off June 16-17. It is impossible at this point to predict what’s going to happen but I can make a good guess. Eight weeks from now Egypt will be led by either a radical anti-American Islamist who wants to wipe Israel off the map or by a radical anti-American nationalist who just hates Israel passionately.

Romney must respond to attacks like Gingrich or New Jersey governor Chris Christie would. A gentlemanly, gloves-on strategy will not win this election. This does not mean Romney should call Obama a socialist or Marxist. Instead, he should show that he’s the mainstream candidate while the Obama administration is out of step with historic, successful American practice.

It is the year 2012, people are walking around with smart phones and all sorts of undreamed of gadgets, the "Arab Spring" continues, and an African-American is president of the United States. Times have changed. Yet the hysterical hatred for Israel in the Arabic-speaking world and among Muslims in general has only increased; the philosophy of rejectionism is as strong as ever, or maybe even stronger.

The diagnosis being offered by Peter Beinart and his ilk is false and slanderous toward Israel and the solution being presented is false and dangerous to Israel. The goal is to get American Jews to adopt the basic anti-Israel narrative that paints Israel as the villain responsible for the lack of peace and ultimately delegitimizes Israel’s survival.

To view government as a form of deity or an inevitable friend of the poor and downtrodden is an illusion. Government is not a magic box, but a can of worms. To see it as a player, with its own interests, that should be as distrusted as any bank or corporation is the purest form of common sense, the very triumph of common sense over ideology and dogma that made America great, its people free, and real democracy possible.

As the Turkish PM continues to undermine Turkish democracy, throw hundreds of moderates into jail, destroy the nation’s institutions, support Iran, throw hysterical tantrums about how much he hates Israel, promote Islamism in the region, and is fresh from yet another meeting with Hamas leaders, Obama continues to use Erdogan as his guru.